Tall, dark and brooding, the infamous Maine-Montparnasse Tower is an unexciting skyscraper, especially by Parisian standards, but that could all change if MAD Architects converts it into a city-scale mirror. Their renovation proposal employs clever optical tricks to reflect and invert the surrounding cityscape.

When it was built, Montparnasse was the tallest building in France and heralded as a technological achievement. But unlike the Eiffel Tower, which was controversial at first but became a symbol of the city, this skyscraper never gained iconic status — in fact, it led urban building heights to be capped at seven stories. Some quip it has the most beautiful views in the city, in part because those views don’t include the building.

MAD Architects aims to change perceptions of the tower and its role in the city using concave glass panels tilted at an angle to create reflections of the surrounding built environment.

Viewers would be able to see surrounding streets, roofs and buildings in its mirrored facade. In a way, the resulting design both blends into the environment while also highlighting the beauty of the French capital and showing it from generally unseen angles.

“Today, we cannot really demolish this building and the historical regrets it stands for,” explains one of the architects behind the proposal, “but we can establish a new perspective to re-examine and think about how humanity can co-exist and interact with the tower and its environment, to bring meaning to our hearts.”

Perhaps unfortunately, while the firm was shortlisted in a redesign competition, another team was chosen to renovate the structure before the upcoming Olympic Games. Still, the design idea is out there, and another city might have its own ugly tower in need of transformation.

Barely completed in time, venues at the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil are going south in a big way now that the athletes have left.

The Games of the XXXI Olympiad – Rio 2016 for short – were meant to do for Brazil what the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing did for China: announce the host nation’s arrival on the world stage.

Critics of Rio’s winning bid were placated by that old chestnut; “hosting the Games will bring improved infrastructure and services that will benefit residents far into the future.” So how’s that working out, less than a year after the circus left town?

Rio’s Olympics weren’t all that popular with cariocas (Rio de Janiero-ians) from the get-go, and let’s recall that Brazil’s economy was booming back in October of 2009 when the Games were awarded. In 2014, a massive financial scandal coupled with the onset of Brazil’s worst economic recession since 1990 put a huge financial squeeze on preparations for the Games. With funds tighter than a gymnast’s tendons, corners were cut and, well, you know the story – it’s a wonder the Games were as problem-free as they appeared on TV.

Good thing Rio’s poorer residents had so much to look forward to once the Games ended. Too bad their hopes focused on looting the lightly-guarded facilities of anything valuable – payback, of a sort, for their sense of disenfranchisement and a conviction that the only ones to benefit from the Olympic Games were the rich and powerful. These images depict the jewel in Rio’s Olympic crown, Maracanã Stadium, mere months after the Games ended with a bang at the Closing Ceremonies.

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Amazon Calm Rios Deteriorating Olympic Games Venues

Rio de Janeiro may host the 2016 Olympics but Brazil‘s most picturesque and second-most populous city also boasts a host of infamous abandoned buildings.

Perhaps the most notorious and obvious abandonment in Rio de Janeiro, the 37-story Torre Abraham Lincoln (also known as Torre H) sticks out of western Rio’s Barra da Tijuca district like a sore thumb. Sealed off by plywood hoardings and guarded by round-the-clock security to keep squatters out, the Oscar Niemeyer-designed apartment building is collectively owned by its roughly 250 (out of 454) individual unit owners… who have owed property taxes on their units for decades though they’ve never moved in.

The second of a proposed 76 residential apartment buildings meant to transform Barra da Tijuca before the advent of unrestrained development, Torre H has sat frozen in time since 1972 when construction was halted due to concerns about the building’s structural integrity. The neighboring Torre Charles de Gaulle, fully occupied and functional, offers a clue of what a utopian Rio de Janeiro might have looked like.

Above & Beyond

You’d think a hotel built in the mountains overlooking metro Rio de Janeiro would be a sure thing… and you’d be wrong, at least in this case. Modern Brazil brings us this stark image of an abandoned hotel that once offered unparalleled views but is now itself the focus of visual interest.

No Park King

Park Albanoel is an abandoned Christmas-themed fun park located in Itaguai, just west of metro Rio de Janeiro. The park was the brainchild of the late entrepreneur Albano Reis, known affectionately as Santa Claus Quintino. Unfortunately, however, the founder’s heirs did not share his vision and the park is now home to four families invited to homestead there by the owners.

Unfortunately for those families, the park’s swampy and low-lying landscape is also home to mosquitoes carrying the Dengue fever virus. Kudos to Flickr user chrisgj6 for posted the above images taken at Park Albanoel in mid-August of 2013.

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I Dont Carioca Awesome Abandonments Of Rio De Janeiro

Athletes aren’t the only people trying to set world records in Rio de Janeiro right now, and one artist might have nabbed the gold this week for the world’s largest mural created by a single person. Eduardo Kobra debuted ‘Etnias’ (translation “ethnicities”) along the heavily trafficked ’Olympic boulevard’, stretching an incredible 623 feet in vivid color across 32,000 square feet of a brick wall belonging to a formerly abandoned warehouse. mural portrays the faces of five indigenous men and women from five continents, including the Mursi of Ethiopia, the Kayin of Thailand, the Supi of Europe, the Tapajos from the Americas and the Huli of Papua New Guinea.

Rendered in the artist’s signature quiltwork style, with geometric shapes connecting and layered over each portrait, ‘Etnias’ is an extension of Kobra’s series ‘Peace Outlooks,’ which also includes paintings of Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela. Past projects in a similar tone have seen the faces of Biggie Smallz, Tupac and Bob Dylan splashed across giant surfaces in urban areas around the world.

“The five characters represent the five continents – the concept was based on the five Olympic Rings,” says Kobra in an interview with the official Rio Olympics website. “These are the indigenous people of the world. The idea behind it is that we are all one. This is the first time I have worked with ethnic people. We’ve all got the same origins so we have to get along, not only during the Olympic Games but always. We should always stand for world peace.”

“We’re living through a very confusing time with a lot of conflict. I wanted to show that everyone is united, we are all connected.”

Kobra is hoping to shatter the previous Guinness World Record held by Mexican artist Ernesto Rocha, whose Mazatlan mural completed in 2009 is just over half the size of ‘Etnias.’ Check out more photos of the mural and Kobra’s other work on his Instagram.

Athletes have arrived in Rio for the Olympics on a massive scale in the form of two monumental photographic installations supported by construction scaffolding, one looking like he’s about to back flip over an entire building. French artist JR brings his signature black-and-white style to the streets for a dramatic addition to his ‘Inside Out Project,’ a global series bringing real people and their personal stories to public spaces through art.

The athletes depicted aren’t household names – in fact, they’re not even Olympic athletes who will be physically present in Rio for the Games. The first, installed on the roof of a large residential complex, represents Mohamed Younes Idress of Sudan. “He lives and trains in Cologne, Germany,” says JR. “He missed out on the qualifications for the 2016 Rio Olympics but he is there some how.”

The second figure appears to be that of a diver about to leap into the adjacent ocean. This installation rises from a rocky jetty overlooking the water in the Barra neighborhood. JR says he’s been working on this new technique, with the images supported by metal beams, for almost a year.

We previously featured JR’s large-scale work of urban camouflage outside the Louvre in Paris, where a black-and-white photographic installation made the museum’s iconic 11,000-square-foot pyramid by I.M. Pei seem to disappear. Other ‘Inside Out Project’ installations have included massive paste-ups inside Paris’ Pantheon building as well as covering a mass area of the ground in New York City’s Times Square.